EVALUATION OF MEDIA ADVOCACY EFFORTS WITHIN A COMMUNITY TRIAL TO REDUCE ALCOHOL-INVOLVED INJURY - PRELIMINARY NEWSPAPER RESULTS

This article examines coverage of alcohol-related topics in local news papers as applied to a conceptual model of media advocacy being tested in a five-component community trial to reduce alcohol-involved injuri es. Based on a literature review of determinants of exposure of newspa per articles, it uses a composite measure that rakes into account the likelihood that given articles will be read. This measure is evaluated in terms of the timing of media advocacy training, technical consulta tion, and resulting media advocacy efforts. Three hypotheses find supp ort. First, postintervention levels of coverage across experimental co mmunities appear generally higher than similar preintervention coverag e. Second although postintervention local and county coverage appears higher across experimental communities, no equivalent effect is presen t across comparison communities. Third, increases in local and county coverage in experimental communities were not matched by increases in stare and national coverage in these communities.